Straight after pre-season testing for the 2025 Formula 1 season, Autosport predicted the team pecking order for the forthcoming campaign - naturally accounting for the usual obfuscations that the annual pre-season running often provides.
Now that the campaign is in full flow with three grands prix completed, F1's travelling circus is currently making a return voyage to Bahrain for the middle stage of an early triple-header.
The competitive order is a little different to what we expected; some teams have shown their hand a little bit more, relegating those who perhaps looked more promising in testing. So, with that three-round sample set, we've got a good idea of where each team stacks up in outright pace.
As we sit on the cusp of the Bahrain Grand Prix, perhaps it's time to review the order that we'd put teams in - and rework them based on their current performance level.
Sauber
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 10th
- Constructors' championship position: 9th, 6 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 10th (supertime: 101.603%)
It was largely expected that Sauber would once again sit towards the bottom of the order after failing to set the world alight in testing. Its C45 is largely an evolution of last year's C44, a car that failed to score any points until the penultimate round of the championship, although the Swiss outfit has started off in much better shape as Nico Hulkenberg grabbed seventh in a wet Australia opener.
However, this should not detract from the idea that the team remains the slowest on the grid; although both Hulkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto have shown enough speed in qualifying to bring themselves into Q2 on occasion, both drivers have tended to fall towards the back of the order over a race distance.
The team has also been prolific so far with its update trajectory, bringing something new in all three races with the intent of pushing the C45 further up the order. There's much less inertia under the leadership of COO and CTO Mattia Binotto, while new team principal Jonathan Wheatley has now started work with the team and will look to impart his championship-winning know-how from Red Bull. Yet, there's a long road ahead; even when Sauber becomes Audi next year, it would be unexpected to see it suddenly vault up the order.
Racing Bulls
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 9th
- Constructors' championship position: 8th, 7 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 5th (supertime: 100.640%)
Perhaps the biggest discrepancy in our rankings, as Racing Bulls' VCARB 02 appears to be a malleable and rapid machine that helped Yuki Tsunoda set out his stall for an unexpected promotion to Red Bull.
It's been seemingly easy to get performance out of the car on a Saturday too, as Tsunoda qualified fifth in Melbourne and rookie Isack Hadjar has qualified seventh in China and Bahrain.
Our pre-season rankings stated that "drivers seemed to be struggling badly with handling balance", but the team has seemingly made breakthroughs in the opening rounds and this has allowed it to sit at the top of the midfield pecking order. It's been direct in the corners, giving the drivers a platform to perform on Saturdays.
The team's bugbear has lain in strategy; the team's willingness to stay out on dry tyres for a lap too long in Australia cost Tsunoda the chance of a big points haul, and its steadfast adherence to a two-stopper in China despite the durability of the hard tyre also sapped at its chance to break its duck in a grand prix. Tsunoda's sixth in the China sprint showed what the team could do when strategy was not an issue, although the one-dimension one-stop Japanese Grand Prix helped Hadjar get off the mark for 2025.
How it progresses with Hadjar and now Liam Lawson will be of interest, as the Kiwi looks to regain his confidence after a bruising two grands prix with Red Bull.
Aston Martin
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 8th
- Constructors' championship position: 7th, 10 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 8th (supertime: 101.264%)
This season feels very much like a holding year for Aston Martin, as it waits for its Adrian Newey-influenced, Honda-powered 2026 car to hit the ground running next year. Performances have largely been expected, as the team sits where it left off last season; although the drivers have found the AMR25 to be well-balanced, it simply just lacks the tenth or two needed to regularly break into Q3.
Lance Stroll has scored all of the team's points this year, as Fernando Alonso has endured poor luck in the opening rounds. Stroll clinched sixth in the rain-affected Australian Grand Prix, climbing up the order thanks to a well-timed stop for intermediates, while Alonso crashed out at Turn 7. The Spaniard then suffered a brake fire in China, as Stroll kept his head above water in the top 10.
Japan appeared to show where the team really sits: on the cusp of the top 10, but needing cars ahead to encounter strife. The team has stated on multiple occasions that Newey is fully focused on the 2026 car, but it may be incredibly tempted to borrow the design maestro from next year's development process to help steer the ship with its current car.
Haas
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 7th
- Constructors' championship position: 6th, 15 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 9th (supertime: 101.551%)
Under the leadership of Ayao Komatsu, Haas is a very different team to what it was under Guenther Steiner. There seems to be much more of a proactive approach in the technical department, exemplified by its Japan upgrade to implement a quick fix to a high-speed corner issue that became evident in Australia. The car struggled so much with the Turn 9-10 transition that it spent the weekend propping up the order.
It was hard to see where Haas truly stacked up in testing as it once again avoided doing any performance running; it sat at the bottom of the times having chosen to focus on race pace. Its performance in Australia, or lack thereof, was nonetheless surprising.
Things have been brighter since; a hefty points haul in China ensured heads at the American team wouldn't drop, as Esteban Ocon held his own against the Racing Bulls and Williams cars, and Oliver Bearman cut his way through the order to score 10th on the road - upgraded to eighth after disqualifications.
Komatsu reckons the quick turnaround in revising its floor for Japan worked out, which allowed Bearman to break into Q3 and score another point to ensure the team can keep its hand in the midfield battle. The above supertime has been skewed by its off-colour weekend in Australia; at the Chinese and Japanese grands prix, Haas was seventh overall in the race-by-race metrics.
Alpine
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 6th
- Constructors' championship position: 10th, 0 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 7th (supertime: 101.211%)
The pink-and-blue Alpine looked like a genuinely solid midfield contender in testing, having appeared to keep the momentum from its late-2024 renaissance going after starting the year with an overweight car. And, on pace, it still is. It's a little above Aston Martin in the supertimes, but its season has hardly started.
Despite great optimism at the start of the year, continued as Pierre Gasly made Q3 in Australia, the races haven't fallen in the French team's favour. Gasly got shuffled out of the points late on in the rain-affected season opener, and struggled in China; he rose to 11th before his disqualification for being underweight; he was then 12th in Japan after losing places to Alonso and Tsunoda.
In the other car, rookie Jack Doohan is yet to have a clean weekend; hefty shunts in Australia and Japan were separated by a clumsy race in China, where he got penalties in both the grand prix and the sprint race. The performance is there in the David Sanchez-led design of the A525, but poor luck and misjudgements have left the team bottom of the pecking order. Bahrain offers the team a chance to reset, having shown up well in the pre-season test.
Williams
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 5th
- Constructors' championship position: 5th, 19 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 6th (supertime: 100.844%)
Things have looked good for the Grove squad so far. Alex Albon has scored points in all three grands prix, and has the upper hand over star signing Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard has needed time to get up to speed with the FW47. It's a car that seems to be good everywhere, underlining the transformation work behind the scenes led by team boss James Vowles, who sought to modernise the squad after years of underinvestment.
Unlike last year's challenger, the 2025 Williams began its life on the weight limit. And, as observed in testing, the car was a benign-handling car that seemed to play to Albon's strengths. Small wonder, then, that the Anglo-Thai racer has been a consistent force within the top 10. His fifth in Melbourne was his best result for the team, and best result in F1 since ending 2020 with fourth in Abu Dhabi for Red Bull.
Sainz has struggled more; although he'd got into Q3 in Australia, he immediately undid that weekend with his Turn 14 crash at the start of the race. He finished 13th on the road in China but was promoted to the points following three disqualifications, and then couldn't make much ground in Japan after being handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lewis Hamilton.
But there are reasons for Sainz to be optimistic, as his race pace at Suzuka was generally very good; despite the difficulties involved with following and overtaking, he reeled off passes on Lawson, Hulkenberg, and Doohan to bring some respectability to his race. He just needs to nail qualifying, and he'll be up and running for the year.
Ferrari
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 4th
- Constructors' championship position: 4th, 35 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 4th (supertime: 100.490%)
Spot on here. Ferrari hasn't enjoyed the smoothest start to 2025, despite the hype of Lewis Hamilton's arrival and expectation given its strong finish to 2024. A revised car concept has had its fair share of teething issues, and its double-disqualification in China for different reasons (Charles Leclerc being underweight, Hamilton suffering from excessive plank wear) has pegged it back from challenging the current top three teams in the championship.
It has shown glimmers of speed; Leclerc qualified fourth in Japan, just 0.3s off Max Verstappen's pole time, while Hamilton created a water-cooler moment with his sprint pole and win in China. There have also been moments where Leclerc and Hamilton have turned it on in practice, but the Ferrari just doesn't seem to be able to unlock that final iota of pace between FP3 and qualifying to make it competitive in grand prix trim.
Testing showed that Ferrari was struggling on tyre preservation; although this hasn't been particularly exposed in the opening three rounds, a high-wear circuit like Bahrain might prove to be the indicator if that issue persists. Race pace just doesn't seem to be quite up there with the Mercedes and Red Bull at the moment. Both drivers feel that upgrades are necessary to unlock more speed, as they now feel up to speed with the car and are taking it to its maximum.
Red Bull
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 3rd
- Constructors' championship position: 3rd, 61 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 2nd (supertime: 100.236%)
Much has been said about Red Bull's RB21, particularly in relation to Lawson's inability to tame the car across the opening two weekends. Although his 'demotion' to Racing Bulls seemed incredibly harsh, even for Red Bull's standards, his performance was so far away from Verstappen that he almost seemed like a downgrade on Perez.
Tsunoda has shown hints that he'll be much closer, given his lack of testing before Japan. But he encountered the famous 'shrinking window' of performance needed to string a lap out of the RB21, while Verstappen has managed to find this. The Dutchman was impeccable in Japan, with his pole position shocking the paddock given his own distaste for the car's less-than-user-friendly nature.
In his pre-season testing analysis, Alex Kalinauckas noted "the car was understeering in the slower turns and oversteering in the faster ones [...] Red Bull insiders were left concerned with how unresponsive the RB21 was overall to the set-up changes it tried". This came despite Red Bull's efforts to make a car that perhaps had lower peaks compared to its predecessors, but was more easy to set up; this does not yet appear to be the case.
Red Bull is ultimately shy of McLaren on outright performance, but the team runs a tight ship at the circuits - and the world-class talents of Verstappen can take the car to places it might not necessarily have assumed possible. Without him, Red Bull would be a far less potent force.
Mercedes
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 2nd
- Constructors' championship position: 2nd, 75 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 3rd (supertime: 100.358%)
Brackley's finest has finally produced a car under this ruleset capable of challenging for regular top results - the only problem is that it has to face up against the might of McLaren and Red Bull's Verstappen to do so. The car is consistent, compliant and, above all, fast; the team has so far not encountered any of the issues that have dogged it over the past few seasons.
This appears to be down to much greater correlation between its simulation tools and the real car, and this gives the team much more latitude to try different set-up directions at base and retain confidence that they'll work at the track.
George Russell has taken on the mantle of team leader with aplomb, and has looked assured throughout the opening three grands prix. He put the car on the front row in China, although unsurprisingly struggled to contain Lando Norris on the opening lap and had to be content with third place. He missed a little on Saturday in Japan, but noted that to be disappointed with fifth was a gauge of how far the team has come this season.
In the other car, rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli has already shown significant improvement. Although he'd fluffed his lines in qualifying in Australia, and very nearly put himself out with a Turn 4 spin, his rise through the order to clinch fourth was impressive. He's been much more solid in China and Japan, with just a smidgen missing to Russell's outright pace - not bad for someone in only their first few races. He'll get stronger as the year goes on, which won't help Mercedes' PR department from trying to shield him from the expectation of becoming F1's next superstar.
McLaren
- Autosport's pre-season testing ranking: 1st
- Constructors' championship position: 1st, 111 points
- Performance ranking after three races: 1st (supertime: 100.005%)
As forecast in testing, McLaren has kicked off the year with the quickest car. The MCL39's greatest strength lies in race trim, with a delicate touch on the tyres that contributes to an inevitability that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will sit at the top of the order by the end of a grand prix. Melbourne should have been a dominant 1-2, had Piastri not come off worse in both drivers' excursions off the road at Turn 12, and the team corrected this in China.
Although it's also the fastest car in qualifying, the McLaren does appear to have a bite to it should the drivers over-push. When Norris lined up 'only' third for the Chinese Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella suggested that he'd likely benefit from holding that final 1% back; the car appears to struggle with the usual approach to attacking corner entries on a hot lap. Instead, the approach seems to be to take a conservative entry and then stamp on the throttle on the exit. Both drivers might find this counter-intuitive, at least in the early stages of the year.
How the team approached the Japanese Grand Prix will also split opinion. It's true that one of the McLarens should have beaten Verstappen to pole, but the world champion’s earth-shattering lap ensured he could control the order in a race where it was incredibly difficult to overtake. It was suggested that McLaren should have pursued an undercut with Norris, with it assumed that he could potentially return to the circuit ahead of Verstappen, but the team preferred a lower-risk approach to ensure parity between the two drivers.
Having two drivers in the championship race might pose a problem to overcome, especially if Verstappen continues to transcend his machinery, but that's only something it needs to worry about later in the year. For now, it's about banking the wins and podiums consistently.
